Autobahn Country Club was a great venue for this event as the track and facilities are top notch, but over the years the south course has gotten a little bumpy making it a little more challenging.

The car was great and fairly maintenance free all weekend. The tracks bumpy braking zones made it challenging for suspension dial in but after a couple sessions we were able to dial the car in where we felt there wasn’t a loss in handling ability.

Videos after the jump…

The first day of practice went clean leaving us in second place by a tenth of a second in the Unlimited-FWD, but we also knew the World Racing Scion TC driven by Chris Rado had more in it than it did up to that point.

Sunday would start with two practice sessions, one round of competition, another round of practice followed up by the last round of competition. From the start of the day rain was in the forecast and without rain tires we were wishing for the first round of competition to be dry.

The Time Attack sessions would put only five cars on course at a time based on practice times spread out by 5-6 seconds. Each round would allow five laps; 1 warm up, 3 timed, and 1 cool down.

Being the 5th fastest in the unlimited class we were sandwiched between Tarzan Driving the Crawford STI and Daddio in the AMS TA-X. Rado in the TC and Bush in the 350Z were staged next to us. We went out and clocked lap two in a 1:34.3, lap three in a 1:34.1, and lap four in a 1:34.063. This was a great improvement from practice in the low 1:35s, but we knew it was still faster than a 1:34. Unfortunately the World Racing Scion clocked a 1:30.7 in the third lap making us wish we had a boost knob.

Rain was on the horizon and we made the call not to go out for the final round in fear of an incident on full slicks and packing up in the pouring rain is never fun. We knew we couldn’t beat the World Racing Scion and the third place car, Top Setup K20 CRX, was two seconds behind us so we knew our second place spot was fairly secure. The last round wasn’t any faster for any of the cars in the Unlimited Class but it remained dry until about five minutes after the session was over…Go Figure! We were looking for a mid 1:33 by the end of the day which was defiantly in our grasp, but fell just shy of our goal.

Overall the event was a great success. We met some good people and caught up with some old friends. Thanks to Redline for putting on a great event.

Final Unlimited-FWD Results:
Unlimited-FWD: Chris Rado / World Racing Scion tC / 1:30.717
Unlimited-FWD: Aaron Byram / Pure Tuning EK Civic / 1:34.063
Unlimited-FWD: Charles Rhyu / Top Setup CRX / 1:36.061
Unlimited-FWD: Eric Burnmeister / MMD Mazdaspeed 3 / 1:40.134

Going in to NASA Nationals, with rain expected Friday and Saturday, the TT Group may only have Thursday to set fast times. This was our 3rd event for our TTS Civic this year, making changes for each event. For nationals we added a built K24 and Hoosiers hoping we could get the times down from the 1,40′s that we we running at Mid Ohio in August. We had 1 Goal for Nationals, to beat our previous fast time from our EVO IX that we campaigned Last Year at 1,35.5. After I arrived I saw a new Skyline who had TTS decals, and then a pipe dream entered my head, what if a Civic could out run a R35 Skyline, then I saw the massive hoosiers and the dream was instantly squashed.

Videos after the jump…

The first session started and with Clift behind the Wheel, He turned a 1,35.4 in the first Session. Beating the our old EVO IX time by .1s he also managed to pass the R35 Skyline twice but at the end of the session it was .5s quicker. The second session came and went with no improvements in time.

During the break before session 3 we looked at some of the data from session 1 and 2, and then made some minor changes for Session 3. The Result was a 1,35.077. Tage in his EG went from 1,38′s to a 1,36.5. James Elterman in the Takata STI made it out after being held up in TECH and posted a 1,35.055 bumping us to 5th after the Skyline 1,34.266 and 2 Z06′s who were 1 and 2. Friday and Saturday Morning brought rain, but the last 2 sessions were dry, but a green track did not bring improved times. It was a great event and Good luck to Tage who was Heading directly to Nationals.

Special Thanks to PIC Suspension, Blueprint Engineering, Clifton Ching for Driving the Tires off, and Keith for the Late hour with me at the Shop.